Assignment:
Finding Common Ground Through Social Change
When faced with things that could be done to improve quality of life in the city, it is easy to point out the problems but often harder to come up with solutions. Once you seize upon that great idea, putting it into action will most likely take the work of many like-minded citizens. In this week's Discussion, you will propose a solution to an issue in your community, but you won't stop there-you will also try to recruit your fellow colleagues to work with you.
To prepare for this Discussion:
1. Review the articles "Civic Infrastructure: A New Approach to Improving Community Life" and "Large-Scale Citizen Engagement and the Rebuilding of New Orleans: A Case Study," located in this week's Resources area.
2. Review the media piece Sustaining Quality of Life in the City.
3. Identify a problematic issue in your community.
4. Develop a solution or an approach to solving the problem that you have identified.
5. Craft an appeal, addressed to your fellow colleagues, to join your efforts to solve the problem or address the issue that you have identified.
6. Consider which medium would be best for conveying your message to your fellow colleagues. Be sure to choose a format that is easily viewable by fellow colleagues in the thread. For example:
- Prepare a flyer in a Word document.
- Create a brief PowerPoint presentation.
- Write a brief script for a radio commercial.
With these thoughts in mind:
Post your solicitation for volunteers to help solve an issue in your community. Also, based on your experiences in this course, describe how your perspective has evolved or changed through this course and how you believe it will continue to evolve after the course.
Read a selection of your colleagues' postings.
The problem: Food Deserts in Shreveport, LA.
Food desert refers to a community where they are lack of fresh, affordable, nutritious food and the residents do not have easy access to such kind of food. The Department of Agriculture defines food desert as a residential community where their nearest grocery is over one mile away, and 20 percent of the residents live either on or below the poverty rates. The only available food in these urban food deserts is packed junk foods which you would typically find in a Quick shop in a gas station. This kind of food is quite expensive for instance if you are serving it as dinner for your family. The food also lacks the essential nutritional value and basic health.
The adverse effects of food deserts in the community is malnourished children. According to research, one in every three children is overweight. However, both underweight and obese children can be regarded as malnourished. This can be explained by the definition of malnutrition which states that it does not necessarily lack food but lack of vital nutrients. A study led by the Louisiana Department of health and hospitals indicated that 36 % of children in Caddo Parish are obese (Beauvias, 2015). The real effects of these are high cholesterol content, heart diseases, and type two diabetes. Insufficient diets and subsequent conditions have led to deteriorated academic performance, more health problems, psychosocial behavior. This issue has taken a lot of the community's lives and to deal with it effective strategies need to be employed.
To solve this problem, we need to educate people on the effects of poor feeding habits and choices. This will touch on health issues, education, and long-term economic adverse impacts. After changing the people's perception, we will need to invest and reinvest in sustainable grocery stores both with the help of the government, community and material aid. Also, we shall establish a sustainable farming model to supply healthy foods to the stores.
References
Beauvias, E. (2015, December 8). The Problems (And Solutions) with Food Deserts. Shreveport Magazine.